St. Paul, Minn. — This city is walled.
Walls to separate protesters from police, delegates from “anarchists,” reality from the not-so-glossy stage show the Republican Party has put on here.
Although the political spectacle has ratcheted up as word from the Gulf Coast has gotten more hopeful, there’s enough going on outside the Xcel Energy Center that begs the question — why bother have this convention at all?
The answer is simple, I suppose. Ever since Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson derided the spectacle of the DNC in 1956 and subsequently lost his second election to Dwight Eisenhower, both parties have made sure to throw the grandest party possible — or lose the media and possibly the election.
But things don’t seem to follow that trend anymore. Even after Barack Obama gave his monumental speech at Denver’s Invesco Field – and talking heads like Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann gushed over its historic nature – he didn’t get a bump in the polls. Now, that might be because people are finally tired of listening to his rhetoric, but the tremendous, yet mostly empty buildup may have had a hand in dulling the end effect of his speech.
The Republicans would have been forgiven for severely abbreviating their convention in the wake of Hurricane Gustav. In fact, they could become ultimate opportunists and turned the convention into a telethon for victims of the Gulf Coast storms. Likely, that option would bring them applause while stifling the Democratic response at the same time.
But that’s not what happened.
Some of the parties have been curtailed, but Dennis Hastert and other Republican leaders still meet in a back room for drinks, barely visible through gaps in the black cloth covering the windows.
The hurricane relief center set up on the main floor of the convention center often has no one to speak to about the relief effort and has just become another makeshift media workroom.
The Kellogg lobby is packed to the rafters with every major radio outlet, some waiting for Jon Voight to move to the next table, others blustering on about anyone or anything they happen to see in front of them and one certain broadcaster repeatedly using the phrase “liberal lunatics” to describe protesters out on the street. And Bob Barr just waits for someone to notice he’s standing there.
And all of it will be forgotten in a week.
Except, maybe, the $50 million the RNC spent to pay for the security. For a party whose presidential ticket focuses so much on fiscal responsibility, the money certainly could have been spent elsewhere. Of course, the same goes for the DNC.
But it’s not what goes on inside the Xcel Energy Center makes this particular convention seem ill-advised.
The March for Our Lives, a protest for economic justice, made it from 6th and Sibley to merge with dissatisfied Rage Against the Machine fans. The tear gas and flashbang grenades flew toward the so-called “anarchists” as they refused to move from the area in front of Mickey’s Dining. The scene was even more violent on Monday, when protestors tried to rush the rear of the convention center. As fellow columnist and participating protester Kyle Szarzynski said, “It got kind of bloody.”
Yet the Republicans have every right to broadcast their views and most of the police action — raids and street-level tactics — were the result of “direct action” by the RNC Welcoming Committee and the seemingly random assortment of black-clad radicals who left a wake of destruction in their path. Were it not for them, perhaps the protesters would not be lumped in with “anarchists” — a term that is sometimes accurate, but often a way for the media to describe actions it cannot explain.
But even what is on the street is not what renders this convention worthless.
It’s these damn walls.
As the Grand Ol’ Party invited U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., to put country above party and the protesters begin chanting, “The people united will never be divided,” the cacophony of both sides’ empty idealism crowded out the rest of St. Paul’s voices. Those watching from restaurants in the pedestrian mall down from the Xcel Energy Center watched as a kaleidoscopic mixture of interest groups and “grassroots” action groups yelled in front of them, but not to them.
Both sides are too busy building fortifications against each other to address the townspeople.
When that happens, all those undecided voters and potential political actors in this American democracy can react only one way. When one protest rounded the outskirts of St. Paul, a local resident and her five-year-old son stood there making their voices heard.
“Get out of our city, you assholes!”
That’s not democracy, that’s resignation.
We need not capitulate our political process to this sideshow of political bluster. If Repbulicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Anarchists and any average American left in this country can agree on one thing, it is this — we can’t come together by speaking to ourselves.
So let’s take down our barricades, roadblocks and barriers. If nothing else, we can spend the money we save on a few more town hall meetings.
Jason Smathers ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history and journalism.
